Author
Topic: NHL 2013-14 (Read 8176 times)

Well, we did our games draft tonight (early, but only dates prior to September 15th when everyone is around). Group of nine, but I have two picks. Random drawing of names and I end up with 8th/9th pick. My reaction was:

Here are my results, in order:

Pittsburgh Penguins April 3rd (Crosby and Malkin?)LA Kings October 6th (home opener)St. Louis Blues December 10thAnaheim Ducks October 6th (c'mon, Teemu)Colorado Avalanche March 19th (looking over the young guns)Tampa Bay Lightning January 7th (Stamkos? 'Nuff said)Minnesota Wild November 23rd (looking for that developing rivalry)Phoenix February 27th (I needed a February game)Florida December 20th (ugh, I'll be in Hawaii for this one)Ottawa Senators September 15th (preseason home opener)

All things considered (picking 8/9 of 9) not bad at all. I'll work with another guy in our group and we'll go to two of each others regular season games and then probably take each other to a preseason game as well, so he'll go to my Ottawa and I'll go to the Edmonton preseason game. One of those regular season games will end up as either the Detroit game or the Chicago game he has (November 21st) and likely the Philly game.

Happy to have ended up with the Red Wings game. And tried to see everyone in the new Central (got 5/6 - no Avs, but that's OK since I've seen a ton of them). Might be some swaps as the season progresses and people end up with date conflicts, but a solid list to start the season.

I'm waiting on tickets to go on sale here to pick a set up for a game next year sometime. That'll be my one. At this point I have so much **** going on, I'm not going to any Steelers games this year to save money. I won't miss Pens though. I'm going to one game at least.

Picked up a couple of games in ticket swaps (with my Dad), so I'll be adding Thu, Oct 24 - Carolina and Fri, Nov 29 - Colorado to my list.

ps.Congrats Toronto on losing your new star player for ten games due to a stupid preseason melee (though the goalie fight was a nice touch). Bad blood already brewing in BUF-TOR series. And VAN-EDM has their share of bad blood stewing now too (Gagner busted jaw).

Two nights of watching other teams get going has my juices flowing for our kickoff tonight. Even more than last year, we'll live or die this year with our rookies/kids. I'm expecting big things from Brodin and Coyle sophomore years. And we'll see what happens with Fontaine, Granlund, Niederritter, Zucker. I'm not expecting us to win the Central with Chicago and St. Louis in there, but hopefully we'll be able to hold onto that 3 spot in the Central.

Oh and excellent news today that we were able to extend Pominville for a reasonable 5yr/$28mil. Nice cap hit and when Heatley's $7.5mil comes off the books next summer, we'll have even more room to sign Tomas Vanek add some talent next year.

Pens tickets are INSANELY tough to get this year it seems, at least together, and for a fair price. I'm bummed... Got some time yet, but they're gonna be nosebleeds which I was hoping to avoid. THey're good, but not where I wanted. Was really hoping bowl seats this year.

Had blast last night thanks to 1200 rowdy (drunk?) Jets fans (first time I've ever heard the home goalie taunted in his own building). Yeah you guys 'invaded' our building, but it really only made the hometown crowd louder. Was nice that both teams put on a pretty good show too. And of course, it helps that we won.

I'm loving my squad right now (13-4-4), with full understanding that Josh Harding's ridiculous 1.25/.946/10-0-0 home record won't hold up forever. Still, it's a nice run for the moment and so nice to keep pace in the ridiclous West.

Seriously, a 13-4-4 record (30pts) gets you the 5th in the West? The 8th ranked Colorado (28pts), who were leading the Central just a day ago(!), would still be #1 in the East.

ps.what the hell is a 'beer snake'? We had one break out in our section last night... Is this a thing you guys seriously do up there?

I had to look it up on wikipedia and saw...

Quote

As a result of several minor injuries that occurred when a beer snake collapsed during a regular season Canadian Football League game, the Winnipeg Football Club banned the creation of beer snakes during Winnipeg Blue Bombers football games.[3]

Had blast last night thanks to 1200 rowdy (drunk?) Jets fans (first time I've ever heard the home goalie taunted in his own building). Yeah you guys 'invaded' our building, but it really only made the hometown crowd louder. Was nice that both teams put on a pretty good show too. And of course, it helps that we won.

I'm loving my squad right now (13-4-4), with full understanding that Josh Harding's ridiculous 1.25/.946/10-0-0 home record won't hold up forever. Still, it's a nice run for the moment and so nice to keep pace in the ridiclous West.

Seriously, a 13-4-4 record (30pts) gets you the 5th in the West? The 8th ranked Colorado (28pts), who were leading the Central just a day ago(!), would still be #1 in the East.

ps.what the hell is a 'beer snake'? We had one break out in our section last night... Is this a thing you guys seriously do up there?

I had to look it up on wikipedia and saw...

Quote

As a result of several minor injuries that occurred when a beer snake collapsed during a regular season Canadian Football League game, the Winnipeg Football Club banned the creation of beer snakes during Winnipeg Blue Bombers football games.[3]

Yeah... that sounds about right.

Oh lord. Not a beer snake. I apologize on behalf of the more sober Jets fans. And yes, most likely all of the Jets fans were impaired to substantial degrees. But even if we only made you louder, c'mon dude, 1200 fans were as loud as your other 15K?

Beer snakes are not allowed in Winnipeg, for obvious reasons. I suspect the "injuries" associated at Bomber games were people getting beer on their clothes and complaining about it and nothing much more serious than that, but I do understand how that could frustrate you if you're not part of the drunken loogans participating in said snake. Honestly I don't know what it is, but Americans seem to be able to handle the mixture of alcohol and sporting events in a much more mature manner than Canadians. We need to be restrained for our own protection and it's kind of weird. Don't get me wrong, I'm no prude when it comes to drinking, but it seems some small but at the same time disproportionately large contingent of Canadians cannot actually drink and remain civil. I've seen it at football and hockey games here but have yet to witness it in the U.S.

Not loving our squad right now. Not much offense coming out or it's spotty at times (can't do much in the clutch and grab environment of last night - both teams) and four of the six defensemen we started the season with are out. Aspects of our schedule of late have been pretty tough too, so that hasn't helped (CHI-DET-CHI-NSH-SJ-DET). Outside of Nashville, that's ugly. Ah well, maybe we pull an Oiler and tank for a couple of years. Though I can guarantee there's no way Bettman lets Winnipeg get first pick in the draft two years in a row. He still doesn't love us.